


Four Views of General Jinjur

by Gray Cardinal (Gray_Cardinal)



Category: Wizard of Oz series (L. Frank Baum)
Genre: Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 05:21:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/pseuds/Gray%20Cardinal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little is known of the woman who once conquered the Emerald City. Here, she's seen through the eyes of those whose lives she touched -- a mother, a follower, a witch, and a princess.  (Written for Yuletide 2008)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Views of General Jinjur

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** _The world of _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ and its many sequels was created by L. Frank Baum. Baum's original books (and some of his successors' stories) have long since fallen into the public domain, but one hopes that he's smiling from somewhere beyond the Nonestic Ocean at the many readers for whom Oz and its neighbors remain very much a part of the landscape of fairyland._
> 
> **Acknowledgments:** _As with my previous Oz story, [The Royal Timeline of Oz](http://timelineuniverse.net/Oz/OzMap.htm) was of considerable aid in resolving sticky questions of continuity. However, my explanations for some of these problems are not necessarily consistent with the Timeline or with the many other invaluable Wizard of Oz resources available on the 'Net._

**Meric (Munchkin, pickle farmer, Jinjur's mother)**

Jinjur was always a strong-willed child. I suppose it had to with being two for so long. That was how old she was when people stopped aging the first time, and she stayed two for - well, goodness knows. I watched her as best I could, but of course she got away from me every so often. Mostly she'd go down to the riverbank and play in the mud, but sometimes she tried to follow the path toward the village, and once she got all the way to the edge of the Blue Forest before I caught up. It's a wonder she wasn't eaten by a Kalidah that time; if she'd seen one, she'd have walked right up to it and said "Hello".

The orchard didn't interest her at all - well, not after the first time. I found her sitting under a tree holding an enormous ripe kosher dill in both hands. She'd taken just one bite out of it, and she was staring at that pickle as if it was some kind of monster. "It tastes awful!" she told me. "Fruit's supposed to be sweet!" I tried to explain; I showed her the sweet-pickle trees and the hamburger-chip bushes and the sauerkraut vines. But she just shook her head and said "Awful!" again, and I don't think she's eaten another pickle since.

It was the second summer after the Wizard arrived when she started growing again, just as all the other children did. Wrye - my husband - hadn't taken much notice of her before then; he was too busy with the orchard, and two-year-olds aren't much use as farm hands. Once she was old enough, though, he insisted she do her share of the work. To her credit, she did everything he asked and didn't complain - much - but she always finished her chores just as quick as she could and then went off on her own. That must have been when she started drawing, though she never showed us any of the pictures.

I can't blame her for leaving, either. Wrye didn't tell me what he was about beforehand, no doubt because he knew I'd be as angry as she was. We both found out the day she turned seventeen. Apparently Jinjur heard us arguing about it through the window; when she came in, the look she gave her father would have stopped a Nome in his tracks. For a wonder, she didn't put up much of a fight just then, but she slipped away that very night. Both Wrye and Nabor were furious, of course - Wrye didn't get his new sauerkraut field, and Nabor didn't get his lovely young bride. They tried to hire men to track Jinjur down, but nobody would take the job.

I haven't seen her since, though I know she's done well for herself, and I'm glad of it. She did send a box of caramels last Christmas, though, that she grew herself. Wrye won't eat any; I don't know if his sweet tooth's gone, or if he thinks they'd poison him. Either way, it leaves more for me.

**Esmay (Winkie, architect, Captain in the Army of Revolt)**

General Jinjur certainly didn't lack for charisma. It took her less than three months to organize the Army of Revolt. It was an amazingly quick job, especially considering how much ground she covered - she visited all four of the outlying countries, going from village to village and recruiting her troops. Then again, you might say that the Army of Revolt was already formed and just waiting for someone to come along and make use of it.

In a way, you could say it was Mombi's fault. When Oz first became a fairyland, everyone in it stopped aging - and so those of us who were toddlers at the time stayed that way for, well, practically forever. There are people who claim that most of the recent Wicked Witches we've had started out as the mothers of those permanent two- and three- and four-year-olds, who began studying magic to try and figure out how to keep us under control.

I don't know whether that's true or not, but apparently what happened (or so they say at Professor Woggle-Bug's college) was that when Mombi enchanted Ozma - specifically, when she turned Ozma from a fairy into a human - she accidentally disrupted the magic that kept people from getting older. For adults, there wasn't much of an effect, but for children, especially small children, it was different. We started growing up like anyone else, year by year, inch by inch . . . and after fifteen years or so, there were suddenly a great many more older boys and girls in Oz then there had been for an extremely long time.

Not many people noticed, probably because few of us in Oz travel very much. But Jinjur did. She didn't know why there were so many other girls near her own age everywhere she went - none of us did at the time. But she paid attention to us when too few others did. She listened, and sympathized, and understood. And she saw the opportunity we represented - to make people pay attention, to listen, to value us as something other than dishwashers and floor-sweepers and feeders of chickens. That was why we made her General when the Army of Revolt was organized.

That's right; it was the Army's choice, not hers. Jinjur herself first suggested a Quadling girl - her name was Celene, I think - who'd served for a little while in Glinda's honor guard. But the Army voted, almost unanimously, for Jinjur. We all felt we knew her, that she understood us, that she was the one person all of us would follow. And follow her we did, from the Army's first shining moment of triumph right through to the showdown with Glinda. I suppose in soldiering terms she wasn't really much of a General, but then none of us were really soldiers ourselves. No one really blamed her for the Army's defeat. Nobody had expected to find themselves in a real war, much less one with Glinda the Good herself.

Besides, even though the Army lost its war, most of its members got what they wanted in the end. When we went home, we chose the places we found for ourselves, and our neighbors and families made room for us on our terms rather than theirs. And if trouble arose - as it occasionally did - we could go back to the Emerald City, where the ruler was a girl not too far from our own age, who would listen and pay attention and take our problems seriously.

And that's why anyone who was part of the Army of Revolt will tell you that Jinjur - not Glinda or Mombi or anyone else - deserves the most credit for restoring Ozma to the throne.

**Mombi (Gillikin, former witch, counselor to Jinjur)**

Jinjur? Oh, the chit who kicked the Scarecrow off of the Wizard's throne.

Not much of a General, I daresay, but she might have made a passable witch. Sensible, at least. She knew enough to send for me when her prisoners escaped. I'd have been along soon enough even if she hadn't, of course - Tip being who he was, the very last thing I wanted was for Glinda to get hold of him, and working with Jinjur's Army was my best hope of getting him back.

She didn't like me, I'll tell you that. Not that I wanted her to - most folk are afraid of Wicked Witches, and that's as it should be. But she stood up to me well enough. I could have turned her into a porcupine, or a seat-cushion, or a piano as easy as anything . . . except if I had, her whole Army would have been after me quick as thought, and four hundred angry girls with knitting needles are more dangerous than you might think. Jinjur knew that, and if it didn't keep her from being afraid of me, it kept her from showing it. She also knew enough about magic to ask the right questions and provide the right sort of supplies. If I'd wanted an apprentice, I might have taken her on, but no competent Wicked Witch wants competition.

Mind, I never understood the business with the field mice. Jinjur was a farm girl - I could tell that much just by looking at her - as were a good many of her so-called soldiers. And no self-respecting farm girl ought to be frightened of an ordinary mouse. If I'd been in the palace at the time, that trick never would have worked; I'd have changed half the mice into cats, and that would have ended the matter. As it happened, I was out renewing my stock of magical herbs and powders. Pity, that; otherwise, I'd have had my Tip back, and before long he'd have been a lovely marble statue next to the Forbidden Fountain in the palace courtyard.

It would have taken time and planning, but given the chance, I'd have made Jinjur a statue, too, and set her up right beside him. They'd have made an attractive pair. Appropriate, too - I rather think Jinjur had taken a fancy to Tip. That might explain why she let the boy and his friends escape the second time. If things had fallen out differently, I don't doubt the two of them would have made a match of it, which would have been wonderfully ironic in the circumstances.

Married? Not that I ever heard, and I don't expect it lasted long if she was. As popular as she was with her Army, she was a solitary sort at best - I told you she'd have made a passable witch, and she certainly had the temperament for it. Look what she's doing now: living by herself, growing her own caramels and painting pictures that leak magic. If that isn't witchery, it's close enough not to make much of a difference.

**Ozma (fairy, ruler of Oz)**

Am I fond of Jinjur? What a strange question.

Yes, we're certainly friends. I've never held a grudge against her; the Army of Revolt may have been misguided, but its heart was in the right place, and if it hadn't been for that rebellion, I might never have been disenchanted. But "fond"? Oh, wait - you've been talking with Mombi. I've heard the story she tells, that Jinjur was interested in me when I was Tip.

It's possible, I suppose. We would have been the right ages, so far as age counts for anything in Oz. And I expect I was a reasonably good-looking boy. Mombi couldn't have made me truly ugly, and I worked hard enough for her to keep myself well conditioned. The trouble is that we really saw very little of each other before I was restored. I met her for the first time on the road to the Emerald City, but when we arrived I slipped ahead of the Army, met with the Scarecrow, and we escaped almost at once. When we came back with the Tin Woodman and the Woggle-Bug, we were in Jinjur's presence only briefly before the Scarecrow released the field mice and she fled with her Army. She remained in the palace while my friends and I searched the Emerald City for Mombi under Glinda's direction, and by the time we captured her at last, I had resumed my original form. And now that I think about it, I am not sure Jinjur knew at the time that the Princess Ozma she met in Glinda's company had been merely Tip the night before. The full story was not widely circulated until a good deal later, and by then I believe Jinjur had gotten married.

No, in that Mombi is right. The marriage did not last, nor did the Munchkin king to whom Jinjur had pledged service. That king proved merely a pretender, related neither to Cheeriobed's line nor to that of Ojo's Unk Nunkie, and the Munchkins quite properly deposed him when they discovered the fraud. As for Jinjur's husband, he was evidently mistreating his nine cows quite badly, and when Jinjur discovered the truth, she took the cows away from him and brought them to me. I offered her a place here, of course, but she replied that she would feel awkward living in a city she had once conquered, and so I found her the house and farm she presently occupies. She seems very happy there, and regularly sends shipments of caramels and other delicacies to the palace kitchens.

A witch? Hardly. There is a touch of magic about her, but no more than many of my people possess. Jinjur has overcome a great deal in her life, and she is young by the standards of Oz. I am not surprised that she values her privacy, and I think it best to respect it.


End file.
